Incidents recall

SIMPLE RISK ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES 1 Incident Recall... 

The critical incident technique (also referred to as incident recall and the significant incident technique)... 

William G. Johnson, in MORT Safety Assurance Systems, refers to a similar process known as Incident Recall. This is what he says about it. 

Whatever the system is called — significant incident recall technique, incident recall technique, or critical incident technique — adding such an element to a safety management system to identify hazards that particularly pertain to low probability-high consequence incidents will have value. 

All such initiatives—such as incident analysis, task analysis, and Incident Recall Surveys—produce outcomes that are predictive in one respect. They identify those aspects of technology (the characteristics of things) or... 

Therefore, safety professionals must have within their endeavors a separate and distinct activity to seek those hazards that present the most severe injury or damage potential so that they can be given the priority consideration they require. Making Hazardous Incident Recall Surveys would serve that purpose. 

A system designed to make Hazardous Incident Recall Surveys, which is a qualitative measurement system, would produce data that could be predictive of the future. 

Incident recall is another technique that can be utilised in a damage control programme to gain information about near-miss accidents. 

Essentially, the incident recall technique may be used to identify unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, non-compliance with safe systems of work, and near-miss accidents by following a confidential interviewing procedure to a stratified random sample of employees. Each interviewee is asked to recall and report verbally any of the above-mentioned situations in which he was involved or has knowledge. Details of near-miss accidents are then obtained to enable remedial action to be taken before further similar accidents result in both damage and injury. 

ManagemenUworker discussions can also be useful in the identification of risks. Formal discussions take place during meetings of the safety committee with informal discussions occurring during on-the-job contact or in conversations between supervisor and worker. The concept of incident recallis an example of management/worker discussion. 

From this it can be seen that the majority are either near misses or damage only accidents, so that any accident control programme, for its greatest effect, must concentrate much of its attention on these two areas. Related techniques of damage control and incident recall are dealt with in sections 9.4.2 and 10.12 and also by Bamber . 

Even for the large organization with significant annual hours worked, in addition to historical data, hazard-specific and qualitative performance measures (safety audits, perception surveys, the incident recall technique) are also necessary, particularly to identify low-probability/severe-consequence risks. 

Some of those analyses will be based on historical data, some will be made of specific tasks, and some will seek to identify hazards for which the potentials have not yet been realized. All such initiatives—such as incident analysis, task analysis, incident recall surveys— produce... 

Incident recall is an information gathering technique whereby employees (participants) describe situations they have personally witnessed... 

Bamber, L., Incident recall - a (lack of) progress report. Health and Safety at Work, 2, No. 9,... 

Near miss incident recall and accident recall are ideal methods of recalling various accidents and near miss incidents in an effort to remind people of what went wrong in the past and also to highlight potential near miss incidents that may have not been reported via the formal system. It is a method to learn from past mistakes. 

Near miss incident recall, on the other hand, is a method of recalling near miss incidents that did not result in any injury, visible damage, or production loss, but which may have if circumstances were different. 

Near miss incident recall is a technique used to recall these near miss incidents that had potential to cause loss, but were never identified nor reported. 

The importance of near miss incident recall cannot be emphasized enough. Accidents that cause injury, damage, and production losses are recognized as being important and are reported and investigated. Many near miss incidents are ignored and not reported or acted on. 

Near miss incident recall reveals the events that could have injured someone or damaged something. Near miss incident recall is the ideal way of getting near miss incidents reported, so they can be investigated and positive steps can be taken to eliminate the root causes. 

Near miss incident recall also can offer a guide as to what training is needed concerning the high risk acts and conditions that are being reported. It can help to... 

Near miss incident recall is a precontact activity. It allows the recall of near miss incidents that have not yet caused harm or damage and endeavors to identify the root causes and rectify them before any contact takes place. 

Employees will be hesitant to recall near miss incidents if the recall ends up in disciplinary measures. A near miss incident recall session should be treated as confidential and the information disclosed also should be handled with discretion. No disciplinary measures should take place. Finger-pointing and punishing people for recalling near miss incidents will stop employees participating in the near miss incident recall sessions. Where possible, the near miss incident recall should be a factfinding session and not a blame fixing or witch hunt activity. 

Informal recall sessions can be held on a person-to-person basis during the normal workday. A near miss incident recall form also could be available and anybody could then fill in the form and report a near miss incident. This report could remain anonymous and the person reporting the near miss incident need not name the person or persons involved. 

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